June 9, 2014

Can’t believe it finally happened but it did! Today we had the first ever Meconta District Science Fair. Elizabeth and I had been working with our counterpart (who had helped us out a lot with the library) plan everything out and the date we had set was May 24^th. The morning of, we showed up with our students, ready to go, when the school director showed up with a notice that the date had changed to some other weekend in the near future. Apparently, they had just decided to change the date the day before because the administrator (governor) of Meconta wanted to come and she was busy that day. It was extremely frustrating, especially because no one had told us this beforehand.

 Our counterpart kept pushing back the date until the very last possible day we could participate. We took over a room at our school, set chairs up and desks, and prepped our students. Overall, there were seven groups (three from our school and two from another school in our district, Namialo). The winning groups were a home alarm system, glue to patch up tin roofs, a battery powered toy car, and a periscope. The students, especially the older ones, knew their information and it was fun watching the judges (Elizabeth one of them) quiz the kids. A lot of our students in Meconta also had the opportunity to walk around and see the projects and get ideas for next year.

Students explaining their project.

The glue group (to make this glue in particular you mix gasoline and Styrofoam, which is actually napalm. So although this glue is waterproof, keep it far away from fires!)

The homemade residential alarm group! When either the wooden door or window was opened, the light would turn on and music would start to play. These guys did a great job explaining the physics behind their project and the only girl who participated in the fair was in this group.

 

Overall, the fair was a success. The administrator never showed up (of course) but I think the students had fun. Hopefully the winners will do well in the Nampula Provincial Science Fair and we get more participants for next year.  

By the way, did you notice the classroom that we had the science fair in? That particular classroom is now in the process of becoming the new school science laboratory! When Elizabeth and I went to school after the break, we found out that thirty boxes had been delivered to our school full of lab equipment! The boxes haven’t been opened yet (apparently the school is waiting for a guy to officially set everything up?) but Elizabeth has offered, on multiple occasions, to do everything herself. There is no point waiting around for a guy who might never show up, we only have a few more months left here! To get things moving, Elizabeth asked her 11^th grade students to paint a periodic table. It’s looking pretty good, can’t wait to see how it turns out when it’s finished!

 

Painting the periodic table in our future laboratory.